Here’s Why Cardano’s Vasil Hard Fork Is A Seamless Upgrade

Cardano’s most anticipated Vasil hard fork is estimated to happen on September 22 at 21:44 UTC. It will be triggered by the joint IOG/Cardano Foundation team using the Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) technology. The HFC technology makes Cardano’s upgrade a seamless transition to a new protocol without interruption or restart. Also, it helps crypto exchanges and DApps to continue ADA trading and Cardano network usage during the hard fork.

Cardano Hard Forks Are Unique

A hard fork generally splits a blockchain into two, changing the blockchain protocol with new rules. The changes are not backwards compatible and the blockchain history will not be available. Moreover, it requires nodes to upgrade software and blockchain to restart after a successful upgrade.

Meanwhile, hard forks on the Cardano blockchain are different. The Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) technology enables the transition to a new protocol without a blockchain split or restart. Moreover, both old and new rules are maintained on the blockchain. The protocol changes to new rules, but the history of previous blocks is preserved.

The Vasil hard fork will have blocks from earlier eras including Byron, Shelley, Goguen, and Basho. Hard forks in the future will also combine Voltaire blocks in a single chain. Also, shifting from one protocol to another such as Ouroboros Praos to Genesis does not require nodes to upgrade. In fact, the nodes can gradually upgrade after a hard fork as the blockchain supports old blocks.

The Vasil hard fork is the biggest upgrade for Cardano. It further improves Cardano’s proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain in terms of transaction speed, DApps scalability, and low transaction costs.

The Vasil hard fork introduces several capabilities including the Plutus v2 scripts, diffusion pipelining, reference inputs, inline datums, reference scripts, and data serialization primitive.

SPOs, Crypto Exchanges, and DApps Ready for Vasil Hard Fork

As per Cardano’s “Ecosystem readiness for Vasil upgrade,” 99% of mainnet blocks are created by the Vasil node 1.35.3. Moreover, crypto exchanges are ready to provide liquidity and top DApps have confirmed their readiness for the upgrade.

IOG has announced that the exchange readiness by liquidity is now over 90%. It means the team can proceed to trigger the Vasil hard fork at the scheduled time.

At the time of writing, the Cardano price is trading above $0.45, up nearly 2% in the last 24 hours. Here’s how the Cardano price may move after the Vasil hard fork.